Diving artist takes aim at Glacier

There have been plenty of artists-in-residence at Glacier National Park. Chris Gug, however, is the first to dive right into his project — literally.

Gug recently spent a solid month photographing the park’s underwater landscape. The Fort Lauderdale, Florida, photographer has been diving and taking underwater photos since he was 15.

He said he stumbled upon the application for Glacier Park’s program after he did a Google search for artists and Fort Lauderdale airport expansion.

The park’s artist program popped up in the search.

“The more I talked to the park, the more I wanted to do it,” he said.

Gug was accepted and dove in Glacier’s rivers and streams from Oct. 6 to Nov. 1, taking photos completely underwater and with a unique split view that shows both the underwater world and the landscape above the surface.

He dove in several of the park’s lakes and waterways, including Iceberg Lake, Hidden Lake, Lake McDonald, McDonald Creek, Kintla Lake and Upper Grinnell Lake.

“At Upper Grinnell there was a three-inch layer of ice when I was in there,” he said.

The split views make for fantastic shots — Imagine the viewpoint of a river otter or an ambitious fish.

Gug has dived all over the world. He started his career in warm saltwater, shooting the flora and fauna of coral reefs.

“But I’m tired of that,” he said. “Now I’m looking for things like swamps and frigid freshwater lakes. Glacier was right up my alley.”

He wore a dry suit to keep warm and shot the photos with a Nikon D810 in an underwater housing along with a 15 mm Sigma fisheye lens for most shots. To take close-ups, he used a macro lens.

He saw plenty of land wildlife during his trip, including a grizzly and black bear from a long ways off. But what really got him stoked was a sponge — a bright green freshwater sponge growing in McDonald Creek.

“I was floored,” he said. “It really got my geek up.”

Saltwater has thousands of species of sponges, but freshwater sponges are more rare — there are about 140 species of freshwater sponges.

Gug makes huge prints of photos and sells them at his gallery in Fort Lauderdale.

He said he’d like to come back and do more underwater photography in the park, particularly in the winter.

“I’ve got to reach out and do something new and different and creative,” he said.

You can view more of Gug’s work at: www.GugUnderwater.com or on his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/GugUnderwater.